Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when you turned on a PC, more often than not, you’d get a Basic prompt. Most people would then load a game from a tape, but if you were inclined to program you could just start writing. [Richpl] wanted that same experience and thus PyBasic was born. Along with some other Github contributors, the system has grown quite a bit and would be a good start at porting classic games or creating a replica vintage computer.
The interpreter lacks specialized hardware-specific features such as sound and graphics, of course, but then again, you could add them. It does have file I/O and also includes some interesting features like an analog of C’s ternary operator.
There are line numbers and if you are looking for a way to contribute, the program is lacking a renumber feature. There are a few oddities around handling numerics. For example, you can assign a string to a number (which could be a feature) and there’s an extra space in negative number output. Leading zeros are not optional for numbers less than one. You can use colons to put more than one statement on a line, but not if they are part of a loop. So there are lots of ways you could contribute if you were so inclined.
We hear that [Richpl] is working on an Oregon Trail port and already has a text adventure, Star Trek, and Eliza working. If you decide to play with this, you really need this book. We still like computers that boot to Basic.
..Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
